[MD] A transcendent moral order

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Platt  --


> The longer I participate in MOQ_discuss, the more I see Pirsig's
> metaphysics confirmed, not only by all of you (even Ham is getting
> mighty close), but also by those in the "outside" world.

I realize this reference to me was meant as a compliment, but you are 
associating my metaphysics with the wrong company.  Unlike Robert Pirsig and 
Robert Wright, I am neither an evolutionist nor a moralist.  And I'm 
certainly not a globalist.  The philosophy of Essence is not about man's 
evolving a morality to save the world, but about the individual's valuistic 
connection to the uncreated source.

Obviously the author of a book titled "The Evolution of God" is more 
interested in anthropology than monotheism or metaphysics.  When the former 
nun Karen Armstrong decided to write "A History of God", she had no 
intention of describing an evolving deity.  In her Introduction to that 
NYTimes best-seller, she included this caveat: "This book will not be a 
history of the ineffable reality of God itself, which is beyond time and 
change, but a history of the way men and women have perceived him from 
Abraham to the present day."

> The last two lines of the review is especially prescient.
> After denying the existence of an Almighty God but allowing
> for perhaps a "minimalist" one ...

Instead of a "minimalist God", what about a globalist religion?  For that's 
really the author's message.

>... the reviewer says:
> "The good news is that there would be a divine being.
> The bad news that it's not the one that anyone is looking for."

Since you were impressed by Wright's book review, I did a Google search and 
found a chapter-by-chapter abstract on the author's website.  He spells out 
his objective in the Introduction: "I contend that the history of religion 
presented in this book, materialist though it is, actually affirms the 
validity of a religious worldview; not a traditionally religious worldview, 
but a worldview that is in some meaningful sense religious."

Like his predecessor, Wright isn't defining an evolving God or extolling 
theism.  His topic is the historical development of cultural morality with 
the sanguine view that it will ultimately be the savior of the world.  In a 
section called 'The Moral Imagination', Wright says:

"Today the social system, an incipiently global social system, is again 
threatened by chaos.  But now religion seems to be the problem, not the 
solution.  Tensions among Jews, Christians, and Muslims -- or at least among 
some Jews, Christians, and Muslims -- imperil the world's order. And the 
tensions are heightened by the scriptures of these religions -- or at least 
by the scriptures as they're being interpreted by the people who are 
heightening the tensions.  Three great religions of salvation have helped 
put the world in need of salvation."

A clearer sense of Wright's globalist agenda may be found in an earlier 
essay he published in The Atlantic with the title "One World under God".  He 
talks about "moral progress" in these terms:

"Globalization is the culmination of this trend, and it features so many 
non-zero-sum filaments that we lose sight of them. ... If Muslims get less 
happy with their place in the world, more resentful of their treatment by 
the West, support for radical Islam will grow, so things will get worse for 
the West.  If, on the other hand, more and more Muslims feel respected by 
the West and feel they benefit from involvement with it, that will cut 
support for radical Islam, and Westerners will be more secure from 
terrorism."

It's wishful thinking to believe that religion -- any religion -- can save 
the world.  What will save the world is the realization that the essence of 
man is what he values.  If he values life, freedom,  and opportunity for 
all, he will bring these moral principles into being for the common good. 
If, on the other hand, his values are directed toward the hatred, abuse, 
destruction, or oppression of others, mankind will not sustain itself. 
Fortunately, despite religious extremism and the abandonment of metaphysics, 
human history seems to be evolving ever so slowly toward morality.

Thanks for the book reference, Platt.

Best regards,
Ham

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> Case in point,
> today's NYTimes book review of "The Evolution of God" by Robert
> Wright which includes the following excerpt:
>
> "In sharp contrast to many contemporary secularists, Wright is bullish
> about monotheism. In "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny" (2000),
> he argued that there is a moral direction to human history, that
> technological growth and expanding global interconnectedness have
> moved us toward ever more positive and mutually beneficial
> relationships with others. In "The Evolution of God," Wright tells a
> similar story from a religious standpoint, proposing that the increasing
> goodness of God reflects the increasing goodness of our species. 'As
> the scope of social organization grows, God tends to eventually catch
> up, drawing a larger expanse of humanity under his protection, or at
> least a larger expanse of humanity under his toleration.' Wright argues
> that each of the major Abrahamic faiths has been forced toward moral
> growth as it found itself interacting with other faiths on a multinational
> level, and that this expansion of the moral imagination reflects 'a higher
> purpose, a transcendent moral order.' "
>
> Platt.